Any cricket match often makes me nostalgic. This is especially the case if it is an India Pakistan cricket match. I find it almost disturbing when someone walks up to me and asks me “So, who are you cheering for?” It has happened a million times and will continue to happen. I’m not too sure as to what they expect to hear. “I’m cheering for Slovakia of course! What about you?” If you say you support Pakistan (with obvious sarcasm that would rival Dr. Houses’) you will still get the stink eye from some people. And if you say that your favorite player is Shahid Afridi, for obvious reasons (*you’re a girl*) then God help you. I don’t get why people come and ask me this questionable question. It’s like the acid test. If you say you support the Indian cricket team in a match against Pakistan, you deserve a medal of honour. On the other hand, if you happen to answer “Pakistan”, even as a badly timed joke and then later die at the hands of a sinister sniper in the Ladakh region, half-dead already due to frostbite with shedding extremities, it is too late. You’re already a traitor.
It’s almost heart wrenching to have to answer questions like these. We love our country just as much as any
politician citizen of this country. It’s hurtful to have your patriotism questioned every step of the way. Even if you do see some bearded blood thirsty bozo staring at you from the front page of the newspaper with a maniacal smile every other week, I still say that it's only a handful of people that are involved in maligning the name of Muslims and rampantly practicing terrorism in the name of Islam. These illiterate, self proclaimed flag bearers of the Muslim community are the ones that are creating a ruckus for themselves and in the bargain, for us as well. That's why the rest of the innocent and unsuspecting community have to bear the brunt of their stupid misdoings, which are nothing but classic cases of the devil quoting the scripture for his own purpose. (Honestly, think about it logically, if God wanted some of us dead, He’d do it Himself, He wouldn’t need the services of intellectually challenged buffoons. I think He is quite self sufficient, thank-you very much, He is God, for God’s sake). And it’s because of this idiotic behaviour of some misguided morons that Indian muslims have their motives questioned every step of the way. However, I say...
Even we put post its that say 'dekho, magar pyaar se' behind the shirts of our unsuspecting friends.
Even we do window shopping at malls, and then buy the same jacket/purse from the nearest ‘fashion’ street.
Even we don't leave the theatre until the
entire Govinda movie (with credits and remix version of title track) is over, only to come out and say 'what crap ya!'
Even we have cousins spanning every continent in the world.
Even we, despite having a population of 1 billion (and cousins in every continent), can’t help but get excited when we see an Indian on TV or on the road when we're abroad.
Even we eat wada pav instead of Mc Donalds (although we would settle for a Chicken Maharaja if we're not cash strapped for the day).
Even we prefer idli sambhar and poha to Chocos and Kellogg's for breakfast.
Even we become a chintamani when it comes to a nail biting down-to-the-last-ball Indian cricket match.
Even we sit and curse the Indian cricket team everytime they lose and say “Yeh log aise hi hai, kabhi nahin jeetenge” only to go back and support them whole heartedly in the next match.
Even we don't let go of a 'Buy one, get one free' offer
without a bargain.
Even when we go to fashion street, we follow the classic 'barigain-and-walk-away' regimen till the shopkeeper calls us back and gives us what we want at our price.
Even we have embarrassing aunts that believe they would rather use the 2”x2” doorknob and open the door with the suddenness of Hogwarts ghosts than use the 6'8"x2'6" door surface to knock before entering.
Even we have relatives that come home after twenty years and say “Arre, kitni badi ho gayi hai tu!”, like they were hoping we were progeria patients.
Even we have the compulsive disorder of following suit and forming a crowd by stopping to look at something out of curiosity if even one person is doing so.
Even we love our paradoxes and can’t help ourselves when, while gossiping, we say “Shut up and say okay!”
Even we believe redundancy is a figure of speech and always end up saying CST terminus, FC college, HIV virus, RBC cell, etc.
Even we pick out and buy cereal boxes according to the price, relative price (price compared to other cereal brands), expiry date, weight and quantity, taste and nutrition value,
in that order.
Even we go to a swanky restaurant and order only the main course, eat till half our appetite is satiated and then go out and have kulfi.
Even we prefer having Chinese at 'Ching's dragun Chinees Senter' rather than going to Mainland China.
Even we get 99% and top our class, only to hear our parents say “
Woh 1% kahaan gaya?”
Even when we go to a fundu bakery, we look at all the 'strawberry cream cheese cake' costing Rs. 108 and 'lemon honey swirl' costing Rs. 95, and then after ten minutes of painful pondering, buy the Rs. 35 blackforest pastry and shut up and eat it.
Even we have bottles of Bournvita, Nutella and Horlicks which contain achaar, pudine ki chutni, adrak lassan and basically anything
but Bournvita, Nutella and Horlicks.
Even our childhood has been captured in embarrassing snaps of us stark naked in the bathtub.
Even when we were kids, out parents made us siblings wear matching floral print dresses (
irrespective of our sex).
Even we are given Ayurvedic small black cough medicine that smells and tastes worse than our phlegm when we have a cough, rather than an allopathic medicine by our aunts, that
always mean well.
Even our parents force us to go to marriages of people we have no clue about, so that we can find appropriate guys/girls.
Even our marriages have clueless brides and grooms standing on the stage, where the guy and girl introduce every elderly male and female as ‘uncle’ and ‘aunty’.
Even we play with toys that were our parents/grand parents during their childhood.
Even we have done our graduation (in medicine or engineering) by studying from our siblings / cousins torn
but marked and underlined text books.
Even we believe that it is a sin for an elevator to move unless and until there are
at least seven people standing in it.
Even we step into the theater late when it's pitch black, end up stepping on someone's foot with our high heels, only to ask
'Lagaa kya?'
Even we buy our novels from the most dependable source - the
raddiwala.
Even we go to a card shop and
before seeing what the card says, flip it over to see the price first.
Even we claim to hate hindi songs, yet can’t help dancing in marriages to the tunes of 'tu cheez badi hai mast mast'.
Even we love playing dumbcharades (and pronounce that word as ‘
dum-sharaads’) and ensure that a round of game does not end until someone is given 'reshma ki jawani' or 'garam tawe par naachti hui chudail' or ‘khoon mein tala samosa’ to act out.
Even we love playing antaakshari and ensure that the game does not end without singing 'Tujhe mirchi lagi toh main kya karu' or 'Sarkailo khatiya jaadaa lage'.
Even our mom's get heart attacks every time a cousin or friend of our age gets married while we’re still strapping bachelors or busy spinsters. This heart attack is followed by a series of lectures lasting till your friend’s/cousin’s first wedding anniversary or your marriage, whichever takes place first.
Even we give missed calls for no rhyme or reason to our friends when they get late.
Even when our relatives leave for abroad,
at least 100 of us go to see them off.
Even that relative of ours, who is leaving has his suitcases tied securely with two locks, a lock for the two locks and a few ropes (like any robber in his right mind would
ever want to steal ten bottles of achaar).
Even when our relatives come back from Dubai or U.S. they don't
dare to come empty handed.
Even we have nosy relatives that die to know when you are going to tell them about 'the good news'.
Even our parents put ads in the matrimonial claiming that we are 'tall, fair and slim' irrespective of how humongous our waistline is or how dark our complexion is.
Even we have to make tea every time a relative comes home.
Even we stop for free tea at a relative’s house just before/after dinner
without informing them beforehand.
Even we think that the traffic will be much smoother if that friggin traffic cop wasn't standing there when the signals don't work.
Even we have parents who say 'woh Patil saab ke bete ko 98% mila aur tumhe sirf 91%!', even if Patil saab's son is in fifth grade and you are in the tenth grade.
Even our mom's tell the
ladkewale that we are excellent cooks, even if all we have ever made in our life was maggi.
Even we cannot imagine graduating without keeping a nickname for each one of our professors and teachers.
Even our entire family of ten people travel in one Zen (Thank God the Nano's launch has been delayed).
Even our families make fun of fairness creams, only to buy them when no one is looking.
Even our parents tell us, loud and clear, in front of the salesman in the air-conditioned mall “I can get this for half the price from flea market.”
Even our parents scream into the phone when an international call comes, thinking the decibel level of the voice needs to be directly proportional to the distance from where the person is calling.
Even we are extreme animal lovers and let them walk / sleep / lie / sunbathe freely on the should-be-one-way-but-is-two-way-road.
Even we have weddings that start with the shehnai playing and end with kids dancing on the stage to the song 'maa da ladla bigad gaya'.
In short, we're as Indian as that falsely ferocious tiger on the 'Tiger balm' bottle. Yes, we’re as Indian as they come.
We agree and we don't blame anyone for the frenzied fear all around when it comes to being Indian
and being muslims, which regrettably, is admittedly justifiable but only up to a certain extent. Our plea to every Indian and non-Indian is to simply not be overtly judgmental and to not question our patriotism and where our loyalties lie, every step of the way.
Even a superstar like Shah Rukh Khan, the poster boy of liberal Islam in India, hasn't been spared in this regard. He said at an event to mark the anniversary of
26/11, “Log mujhe aakar poochte hai, “Aapki kya rai hai terrorism ke baare mein?” Pata nahin kyun poochte hai yeh log, shayad kyunki main ek musalmaan hoon, aur mujhe garv hai mere musalmaan hone par, par sach toh yeh hai, ki terrorism ke baare mein kisiki bhi, do rai ho hi nahin sakti, kyunki terrorism ka koi mazhab nahin hota” (I am often asked my viewpoint on terrorism, maybe because I am a muslim and I am proud to be a muslim. But the truth is that no one can have two viewpoints about terrorism, because terrorism does not have a religion.)
And let's not forget that it was Allama Iqbal that wrote
'Saare jahaan se achcha, Hindustaan hamara' and believe me, we Indian muslims couldn't agree more. So the next idiot who comes and asks me before an India-Pakistan cricket match “So, who are you cheering for?” will get severe, irreversible, facial malformations at the hands of a cricket ball, which is by the way, signed by the entire Indian cricket team of 2003.
Moral of the story: Mera Bhaarat Mahaan. I love my India.
